


all the king's horses

by BunniesofDoom



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Badass Ruby Rose (RWBY), Blake Belladonna Needs a Hug, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Friendship, Gen, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Blood, Nosebleed, Spoilers: Volume 8 (RWBY), Volume 8 (RWBY), Weiss Schnee Needs a Hug, Yang Xiao Long Needs a Hug, hospital mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:14:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28939077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BunniesofDoom/pseuds/BunniesofDoom
Summary: "All we can do for now is wait."
Relationships: Ruby Rose & Team RWBY, Ruby Rose & Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 3
Kudos: 53





	all the king's horses

**Author's Note:**

> Me writing RWBY angst: if team CRWBY gets to wake up every morning and choose violence then so will I.
> 
> Anyway, anyone else terrified by that teaser they dropped yesterday? *laughs nervously*
> 
> Spoilers for the first half of volume 8 ahead. You've been warned. Content warning for brief mentions of blood. Enjoy!

As Atlas is bathed in silver light, Ruby can't help but admire how pretty it looks. It's like looking at the sun; so beautiful that it's painful to look at. Literally. Ruby's eyes are stinging from the intensity of the radiant glow. But still, she can't tear her eyes away.

And then it fades suddenly, leaving just as quickly as it came. Without the Grimm roaming its streets, wreaking havoc and terrorizing civilians, Atlas is eerily silent. For the first time since the invasion started, the city feels peaceful. Safe. The city in the clouds is no longer under siege.

A wave of exhaustion hits Ruby like a blow from a Deathstalker, and she finds herself swaying on her feet, balance lost in a sea of dizziness. Moisture trickles onto her upper lip, and she brings her hand up to touch her face curiously. It comes away bloody. Her nose is bleeding? She frowns in confusion.

The buzzing in her ears is steadily growing louder, drowning out everything around her. Suddenly, she's crouched on the pavement, trying to ignore the way it wobbles under her. She doesn't remember falling to her knees. The buzzing in her ears has become a roaring. Ruby thinks she can hear people rushing towards her and shouting, but she can't make out any of the words. Her head is throbbing in time with her heartbeat.

She wants to sleep, let herself drift away for a while and not have to think, but she's pretty sure that she's not supposed to. She has important things to do, people depending on her. People are in danger. She can't—

Darkness washes over her, dragging her into oblivion despite her struggle to stay awake.

"Has there been any change?"

"No." Hair brushes shoulders as someone shakes their head. "She hasn't so much as stirred since we brought her here."

A sigh. "Did Jaune try transferring some of his aura to her?"

"Yeah." A loud sniffle. "It didn't seem to make any difference."

"The doctors can't seem to find anything wrong, besides just extreme physical exhaustion." Another sigh. "They said that unless she come out of it on her own, there's not really much they can do besides provide supportive care."

"Is there anything we can do?"

"Unfortunately, it seems that all we can do at this point is wait."

"She will wake up again, won't she?"

"I—I don't know. I hope so."

"She will wake up. She has to." A long pause, in which only the steady beeping of a heart monitor can be heard. "C'mon, Ruby, please. Don't do this to me again." A sob. "I'm sorry for what I said, okay? When you wake up you can punch me in the shoulder and call me a jerk and eat the last bit of the Pumpkin Pete's and I won't even complain, okay? Just—wake up. Come back to us. Please."

The bomb misses. Yang watches in horror as a Grimm swats it away, out of Winter's grasp, easily and it explodes harmlessly off to the side, leaving the whale unscathed. They are so screwed.

Sure, they got Oscar back, and it seems that Emerald has defected, but none of that really matters anymore. Not when they're about to die anyway, fighting a battle that they were doomed to lose from the start. Yang is just about to close her eyes, brace herself to go down fighting, when she spots a flash of red out of the corner of her eye.

Materializing in a flurry of bright red rose petals, Ruby skids to a halt in front of them, putting her body like a protective barrier between them and the whale Grimm and the army of monsters that Salem brought to Atlas. Before Yang can even ask her sister what she thinks she's doing, she's blinded by a flash of silver light. The world fades out completely, blanketed in brilliant white.

The light suddenly fades, and Yang blinks the spots out of her stinging eyes. The giant whale Grimm is gone. The army of creatures is gone from the streets of Atlas. She's alive.

And then she spots Ruby, lying motionless on the ground, a puddle of blood forming under her head.

Before Yang can even stop to think about what she's doing, she's rushing to her sister's side, calling her name frantically. She carefully turns her sister over, tapping her face and shaking her shoulders to try get a response, but Ruby remains completely limp, blood trickling from her nose and face ghostly pale. She's breathing, and her pulse is steady, but other than that she looks—dead.

The rest of the day passes in a blur. The next thing Yang knows, she's in a hospital, sitting in a chair by her sister's bedside. Ruby's in a coma. The doctors aren't sure if—when—she'll wake up. And the last thing she'll remember of her sister is Yang telling her she was bad at her job and being a jerk to her for no reason.

"Please, Ruby, don't do this to me again. Please just wake up. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Ruby drifts for a long time, floating in the seemingly empty blackness. Part of her wants to go back to the surface. She can vaguely remember kind, smiling people. Love. Friendship. Family.

But part of her is wary. She can't seem to remember much, but she instinctively knows that waking up will bring pain, danger, fighting. And Ruby doesn't want to fight right now. She's so tired. Can't she just rest for a bit?

And then her heavy eyelids are fluttering open to reveal that she's lying in a hospital bed. The stark whiteness is a sharp contrast to the featureless blackness of before, and she's forced to squint her eyes against it to keep them from watering. But it's a welcome change from the endless nothing of unconsciousness.

She slowly becomes aware of her body. Her head still aches sharply, and every muscle is her body feels stiff and sore. What happened?

Gingerly, she tries to sit up, groaning softly when her muscles protest the movement.

The trio slumped in the uncomfortable-looking visitor chairs jolt awake at the small noise. Their eyes widen in unison. "You're awake!"

Ruby waves, a little feebly, grinning sheepishly. She wishes that they'd stop staring at her like that. "Hey guys."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please comment and leave kudos if you liked it.
> 
> Just a reminder that I do take requests for fics, so if there's an idea that you'd like to see me write, feel free to message me and if I like it, I might end up writing something for it.


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